On the growth and decay of irregularities in the ionosphere

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that VHF/UHF scintillation data can be used to evaluate important physical parameters such as scale sizes, strength, growth and decay of irregularities in the equatorial ionosphere. These parameters are important in constructing electroject models. It is shown that large scale irregularities are generated first which later break into smaller scale sizes. During the decay phase, the small scale irregularities disappear first after followed by large scale irregularities. The generation and destruction time of these irregularities has been estimated to be around 20 min. In addition these irregularities affect propagation of radio waves from HF to UHF range which suggests the existence of a wide spectrum of irregularities in the ionosphere. It has been found that the scale sizes of daytimeE-region irregularities are smaller than those in theF-region during night-time. The growth rate of the irregularities seems to be larger in theE-region than in theF-region of the ionosphere.